The novels Ender's Game and Fahrenheit 451 take place in the future; the futures that the authors' have created are troubled and the world is approaching a disastrous end. Initially, Colonel Graff invites Ender to Battle School and tells him how important it is that he participates in the war. " 'The buggers may seem like a game to you now, Ender, but they damn near wiped us out last time. They had us cold, outnumbered and outweaponed. The only thing that saved us was that we had the most brilliant military commander we ever found. Call it fate, call it God, call it damnfool luck, we had Mazer Rackham.' " (p. 25) The future seems dark because the humans are trailing in bugger war. If the military could get another commander like Mazer Rackham, then the future would be brighter; Ender Wiggins trains to be the next Mazer Rackham. In Fahrenheit 451, people wanting to be entertained all the time causes the future to be mind numbing, bleak, and burnt. "The sun burnt every day. It burnt Time. The world rushed in a circle and turned on its axis and time was busy burning the years and the people anyway, without any help from him. So if he burnt things with the firemen and the sun burnt Time, that meant that everything burnt!" (p. 141)
The futuristic setting is the author's way of saying that the future will be depressing if humans fail to recognize and appreciate literature. The world is doomed because all these people want to do is sit in front of wall televisions and be entertained. Another example, Ender and Peter play buggers and astronauts, which simulates the real war that is taking place. "When kids played in the corridors, whole troops of them, the buggers never won, and sometimes the games got mean." (p. 11) When Peter and Ender simulate the war, they are telling the reader that even children are aware of the terrible war. The author shows his message of a terrible future here through the everyday activities of children being affected by the events that are far from home. Lastly, Montag's wife tries to kill herself by taking an entire bottle of sleeping pills and some emergency workers come; they just go about their business like her suicidal tendencies are nothing. "'Neither of you is an M.D. Why didn't they send an M.D. from Emergency?'. 'We get these cases nine or ten a night. Got so many, starting a few years ago, we had the special machines built. With the optical lens, of course, that was new; the rest is ancient. You don't need an M.D., case like this; all you need is two handymen, clean up the problem in half an hour." (p. 14) The impersonal actions of the "handymen" shows that they do not really care and that Mildred is only another suicide case, no big deal. Mildred's case of attempted suicide presents the wonderment of if the society is happy sitting around and watching television all the time, the fact that there are several suicide attempts a night is peculiar because suicidal people generally are not happy with their lives. The authors' messages are both important because they both say that Earth's future is in trouble.
The futuristic scene of an intellectual future that relies on children in Ender's Game greatly contrasts with the nonintellectual future in Fahrenheit 451. Ender and his squad were all smart children who saved the planet. " He tried to remember how old he was. Eleven. (p. 291). The adults taking all this so seriously, and the children playing along, .could see through their game. (p. 293). 'They'll never attack us again. You did it.' (p. 296) 'And it had to be a child, Ender,' said Mazer. 'You were faster than me. Better than me.'" (p. 298) The children were trained for battle and they had regular schooling, although they did not know that they were the ones that were to save the world, they did. The heroes were children that are so smart; they went to save the planet when adults could not. Captain Beatty explains to Montag the history of human education. "'Out of the nursery into the college and back to the nursery; there's your intellectual pattern for the past five centuries of more.'" (p. 50) This shows what people in the future think about education. They do not want to be educated; they think it is boring and they just want to be entertained. In Ender's Game, Valentine and Peter pose as two geniuses of the world, Locke and Demosthenes, who have completely different ideas. " 'Children?' 'Brother and sister'. 'Which one is Demosthenes?' 'The girl. The twelve-year-old.' 'All the time we've been trying to persuade the Russians not to take Demosthenes too seriously, we held up Locke as proof that Americans weren't all crazy warmongers. Brother and sister, pubescent-'" (p. 227)
Valentine and Peter are children and children are the future, they are smart enough to figure out how to get the whole world in an uproar. Valentine is only twelve and Peter is only fourteen; together they worked on amazing views at what is going to happen after the bugger wars. Card's message that youth is the future and this new generation has all of the genius children. Finally, Montag goes to see Faber to show what he has stolen; Faber is amazed that it is one of the last copies of the Bible. "'It's been a long time. I'm not a religious man. But it's been a long time.' Faber turned the pages. 'It's as good as I remember. Lord, how they've changed it in our 'parlors' these days. Christ is one of the 'family' now. I often wonder if God recognizes His own son the way we've dressed him up, or is it dressed him down? He's a regular peppermint stick now.'"(p. 72) The religion of the future contrasts to today's religion because nowadays, God and Christ are holy deities that are sacred. In the future they are not holy and above humans, they are just 'relatives' on the television, this shows Bradbury's message of an nonintellectual generation because the future people do not even have a religion any more they just do not want to think about anything, especially religion. The similarities and differences in the futuristic characteristics of these imaginary worlds are important because they show the authors' thoughts on the future and what could happen to the human race.
